Lifting up Serenity – Cancer hits a blogger’s family

Phil Burns is a blogger who I recently became aware of through Robert Scoble over this past weekend. He’s a father of eight children on the west coast who writes extensively on technology issues at Phil801.com. His company also makes some blog related products as well.

On May 24th, Phil wrote a post entitled My Baby Might Have Leukemia, Phil told the story that had been haunting their family for the last few days:

About 3 weeks ago, we noticed that Serenity was covered with bruises. They were all up and down her spine and her legs were covered with them. It looked like someone had jabbed her with a stick, really hard and over and over. Needless to say, we were concerned and we were very upset as we believed at first that one of our 7 other children (we have 8 kids) had done something to her. They all vehemently denied doing anything and that night as I was changing her diaper and holding her legs, I noticed that my fingers were covering many of the bruises on her legs. Further examination showed that most of her bruises mapped to finger placement when holding her. We realized that Serenity bruised very easily, this was the first time this had happened. We watched closely to see if new bruises showed up, none did. In fact, the bruises she had cleared up over the next week. We decided it might be a fluke and have kept careful watch, no new bruises have shown up.

Phil goes on to describe what happens:

We’ve pretty much accepted that it is Leukemia. We’ve cried a lot and learned a lot. There are 2 main types, one has an 80% recovery rate, the other is much lower. We’re hoping for the one with 80% recovery. They rattled off a list of what it could be if it’s not Leukemia. I don’t remember any of them but they sound nasty.

Later on, the Doctors confirm the diagnosis as the less-aggressive / more-treatable type of Leukemia – and they’ve since begun treatment…

Phil and his friends & family have begun a website to help his daughter Serenity through this ordeal – you can read about it at LiftingUpSerenity.com. You can also follow the story at Phil’s blog as well.

According to Phil’s latest post, they are looking to startup a long-term foundation to raise money for Leukemia research & treatment… we wish them the best!